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Tennessee PoliticsMon, 07 Apr 2014 14:51:50 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6Nashville homeless man says he got voter ID runaroundhttp://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/2011/nashville-homeless-man-says-he-got-voter-id-runaround/
http://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/2011/nashville-homeless-man-says-he-got-voter-id-runaround/#commentsThu, 01 Dec 2011 16:58:33 +0000Chas Siskhttp://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/?p=15414Al Star, a Nashville homeless man, says he got the runaround from the Department of Safety when he attempted a few days before Thanksgiving to apply for a free state identification to vote, eventually having to call an aide to U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper before receiving the ID.

Star, 59, says a clerk at the Department of Safety’s office in the Snodgrass building near the Capitol initially refused to issue him a free ID to replace his lost driver’s license, saying instead that he would have to pay $12 for a replacement. Star says he told the clerk that he no longer needed a driver’s license because he doesn’t own a car and had stated clearly on his application that he only wanted an ID to vote.

“She felt that I was homeless, which I am, and she didn’t want to help me with anything with the government,” he said. “She acted like, ‘Look at this, nobody’s going to help him out anyway, because he’s homeless.’”

Krissa Barclay, a Cooper aide who works in downtown Nashville, says she had to go up to the driver services center to convince the clerk to issue Star the ID. She told The Tennessean about Star’s case afterward.

At the very least, Star’s case suggests staffers need better training on the rules for issuing free IDs for voting, said Barclay.

The incident ended well enough. Star left the driver services center with a free state identification in hand. In that respect, the episode differs from recent case in Chattanooga in which a 96-year-old woman was initially denied a voter ID because her married name did not match the name on her birth certificate.

Star’s case is much more similar to a lower-profile incident in Murfreesboro, in which another elderly woman says she was discouraged from applying for a free voter ID. She and her husband eventually convinced clerks that she should not have to pay for one.